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Part 1: Picking Up the Spiritual Phone: Equal Vision and the Demand for Grace Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān, Kī Jai. Sorry, I just remembered something from Australia. It reminds me of the atmosphere on this island. There is a television advertisement from Queensland, where people are quite famous for being very relaxed. The ad is for a telephone company. An old retired couple sit on their veranda watching the sunset. The phone starts ringing inside the house, ringing and ringing. After some time, the wife says to the husband, “That will be the phone, Reg.” They both remain still, just sitting and gazing at the sunset. After about five more rings, Reg says, “Yeah.” I can imagine that happening here. Can you imagine how this scene plays out? Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān, Kī Jaya, Bhajan Bhajan. Pāyā Jī Mene, Oṁ Bolī, Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān, Kī Jaya, Śrī Mīrābāī, Kī Jaya, Pāyā Jī Mene. Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān Kī Jai. So, Guru Vakya Part 2. Swāmījī said I should also sing and translate the bhajan “Prabhu Mera”. At first, I thought that was an easy one because I know the meaning, but actually I had never really worked on it. So I spent two hours in the night trying to figure out the precise meaning. Remember, yesterday that bhajan emphasized, “Actually, demand what you want from the Guru.” You should not be satisfied with just a little; you want mokṣa, so let’s go for mokṣa. Gurudev, you are the one who can give it, please. When Swamiji first mentioned these two bhajans, I did not see any connection between them. But I guess the connection is the same attitude we find here in this bhajan. Prabhu, O Lord, O Gurudev. Avaguṇa chita na dharo. Yesterday we spoke about the word guṇa, and here it is used in the sense of guṇa and avaguṇa—guṇa, the good qualities, and avaguṇa, the vices, the negative qualities. And chita na dharo means please don’t look at that, don’t direct your attention there, don’t keep it in mind. Please, I know I have negative qualities, but please do not put your attention on that. Sama darśī hai nāma tihāro. Nām is the name you are called. Sama darśī comes from sama dṛṣṭi. Whenever Swamījī speaks about the qualities of a saint, Sant Bhāv, he mentions several qualities always starting with “S” or “Sh”: Sādhaka, that we always feel as a practitioner; Śiṣya, always as a disciple; Śānt, peaceful; Sant, Santosh, satisfied; and Sama Dṛṣṭi, the quality we are speaking of here now. Dṛṣṭi means to see, like Darśana we had yesterday. Sama means the same, equal—to see everything as equal. So one could call Samadarśī someone who has this equal vision, not distinguishing between good and bad, valuable and less valuable. There is actually a very beautiful story about this quality that comes to mind. At the bank of a river, there lived one sādhu who was very respected; everyone knew him. One very poor man thought, “I might go to him; maybe he can help me. If a saint cannot help, then who can?” So he went and bowed down. The saint asked, “What do you want?” The man explained his poverty and asked if the saint could help. The saint said, “But you know, I am a sādhu, I have renounced everything. For this you have come to the wrong person. I am not a rich person who could give you a donation. Go to the rich; they might give you something.” So clearly, he said he could not help. The man was very disappointed and started to walk away. When he had gone about a hundred meters, he suddenly heard the saint calling. He turned around and saw the saint beckoning him back. He went back and asked, “What is it?” The saint said, “Something came to my mind. Maybe ten or fifteen years ago, I found some precious stones in the sand here.” He went to a certain place, dug a little, and really found a precious stone. He had hidden it for many years, and now he could give it to the man. The man was so happy. His thought was right: the saint can really help. After thanking many, many times, he went away very happily. The saint settled down again for meditation, not disturbed anymore. After about an hour, the man came back. This disturbed the saint, who got a little upset. “Do you still not have enough?” The man, with a very humble voice, said, “When you gave me this stone, I realized that for you it is nothing. You had no use for it. How rich you must be that even such a precious stone is nothing for you. I have come to return this stone and please share with me the treasure you have inside.” Then the saint understood that this man really had spiritual longing, and he accepted him as a disciple. I think this is a good example of Samadṛṣṭi, someone for whom gold and sand are just the same. The bhajan means that God and the Guru look upon every person with equal vision, just as God’s children, lost in ignorance, just as spiritual seekers. Now the devotee goes to the Guru and says, “You are called Samadarśī. Sahē to pāra karo—if you want, you can carry me across the ocean.” And the devotee gives some arguments, using sūrdṛṣṭi in this case. Loha means iron, or what is made from iron, like a weapon or a knife. There is a knife used for pūjā to cut the prasāda, and there is a knife in the house of a butcher. These two knives are completely different. Pāras, guṇa, avaguṇa, nahīṃ chipatā. Here we have the words guṇa and avaguṇa, the good and bad qualities. One knife is holy, the other is the knife of a murderer. But the pāras stone that transforms iron into gold does not consider the difference between them; it just sees the basic quality—iron—and transforms it into gold. Karo, that means genuine, real, pure gold. The second argument: Ek Nadī, Ek Nāl Kahavatā. Nāl is a small channel, and Nadī is a river, perhaps a holy river. This channel, Melo hi Nirbharyo—nir is water, melo means dirty, so the channel is filled with dirty water. When they come together, when they become one, after much research I think the word sursarī is another spelling for Sarasvatī. One is called the jīva, the individual, and the other is called Brahma, God. Or Jīvātmā and Paramātmā: the individual soul and the highest divine Self. And now Sureshya—he has his name, Sureshya, Surya... Jhagara means to argue, to quarrel, not to accept. He says clearly, “I don’t want to accept this difference.” Are you not the one who sees everything with equal vision? Are you not the one who can overcome this duality? Are you not the one who can carry me across the ocean, if you just want? So here again is this very clear attitude of demanding from the Guru, please. Abhī kī bāra, mohī pāra utāre. This is the time to carry me across. I don’t want to wait anymore. Now, please, liberate me now. If you don’t do this, it is like you give up your status among men, you lose your reputation, you are not fulfilling your promise—directly referring to this Samadṛṣṭi. The Guru could say, “But you are not ripe, you are not fit, you are not purified.” The disciple says, “I know. But please, nevertheless, accept me and liberate me.” What the Guru is searching for is just this type of bhakti. Swamiji says, when a child is happy with the toys, the mother doesn’t care too much; she is cooking in the kitchen and from time to time looks—the child is still busy. But when the child leaves all the toys behind and comes running into the kitchen to the mother, then the mother knows, “Now I really have to care for the child.” So this is another way of what Jasrat Purījī said. Hang on. We have to check if we really have this deep, one hundred percent longing. Are we ready to remove the stone to get the inner treasure, or are we still playing with this precious stone? Special from the rhythm—the rhythm stops in between and starts again. So I will give a sign that we are together. We can have a good and strong rhythm, but it has to stop at a certain point and start again. Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇ Bhagavān Kī Jai, Śrī Śrī Devpurījī Mahādeva Kī Jai, Dharma Samrāṭ Paramahaṁsa, Śrī Svāmī Māravānanda Purī Jī Mahārāj Kī Jai, Viśvaguru Mahāmaṇḍaleśvara Paramahaṁsa, Śrī Svāmī Maheśvarānanda Purī Jī, Satguru Deva Kī Jai. Back to Queensland. In that ad, after Reg sat there and said, “Yeah,” he again did nothing, and they just sat on their chairs looking at the sunset. It was an ad for a telephone company, and it just said, “We can make your connection, but we can’t make them pick it up.” I think it’s a good ad. You know, Swāmījī can give us the connection. But are we going to pick it up, or just go, “That will be the phone, Reg”? All that Swāmījī is teaching us, and all that we’ve been talking about—we have to pick up the phone and listen to his message, actually answer and interact with it, and put it into practice. These two bhajans have been, somehow, about being a little bit demanding. There’s one story I particularly like from India, from the 1970s, in Gujarat. The price of food and everything had gone up extremely, and it was getting very difficult to buy food to feed the families. But somehow nothing was happening from the government side. One lady had enough. She took a ṭālī, this metal ṭālī which you all know, and her rolling pin for the chapatis—a wooden one in India. At six o’clock in the evening, she went outside her house and stood at the front door. For five minutes, she banged the ṭālī with the rolling pin. That was it, and she went back inside. Of course, the neighbors asked what she was doing. This was her protest about rising prices, and she wanted to register her protest to the government. This really happened. The next day, the neighbors were doing it as well, at six o’clock. At six o’clock, she and her neighbors were out, banging their ṭālīs with rolling pins for five minutes. The next day, it was the whole village. And now, if you put it in modern terms, after that it went viral. From village to town to district, within ten days, the whole of Gujarat, at six o’clock, all ladies were outside their houses with a ṭālī and a rolling pin, banging. It would make a lot of noise, especially in a city like Ahmedabad with seven to eight million people. Everyone was doing it. It was so simple, so small, but so disturbing for the government. The government got so confused they sent the army to Gujarat to try and stop these ladies from banging their ṭālīs. Tell me how you manage that with the army, I don’t know. And the army just got there, had a look, and actually refused to do anything. It was the only time in Indian history when the army refused to do what the government asked it to do. This is the first time in the history of India that the army did not do what the government wanted it to do. And of course, the government had to do something, because this was completely out of control. It was so simple, so non-violent—you cannot say it was peaceful because it was so loud, but the message was there, and something got done. Now, in these bhajans, it is demanding that Gurujī should hear our prayer and give us that blessing. But how do we make it heard? Not with a ṭālī. We can try, but I think Swāmījī will probably take away our ṭālīs and use the rolling pin from inside. This was such a small noise when it was one. Every small thing we do is such a small noise on its own, in our sādhanā or in our own practice. But when we do ten small things, it starts to become noisy. And when you start to do a hundred small things, it starts to become really something. When your whole being is involved in small, small practices, small parts of your sādhanā, and the whole day is like that, then it is making a lot of spiritual noise towards Gurujī. Listen to me. That one lady on her own was so insignificant, it was nothing. And each one of those small things we do in our practice may seem insignificant on its own, but when it comes together, it makes something really special. There are images again in the bhajan of these pāras maṇis turning the iron into gold. I don’t know exactly, but I remember reading somewhere of a similar type of aim within alchemy, to turn—is it mercury or lead?—into gold. But what I do remember is that the search in that practice was always to have a purity of the fire to be able to do it. That is the purity we have to find within us, the purity in our tapasyā, in our sādhanā. It has nothing to do with lighting a fire on the ground in front of us and making the light really beautiful; it’s about making this fire so pure and so beautiful that it will transform us from within. For me, that Pāras maṇi is when, inside, you see things: everything is a spiritual opportunity. You’re not talking about turning a knife into gold, but if you look at things with the right attitude, really with the attitude of a spiritual seeker, with that awareness… If somebody comes to you whom you like and they have a great spiritual vibration, that’s gold for you because it develops you also; it stimulates you, it nourishes you. If somebody comes with a really bad vibration, whom you regard somehow as somebody you don’t like at all—obviously you don’t choose to spend time with that person, but it’s still gold. Because if you are still keeping your spiritual awareness at that moment, you see where you are at, you see how you are doing, and you see how disturbed you are by that vibration. You don’t seek out those types of interactions, but when they happen, it’s still something you can learn from. If you are too busy to even think, it’s gold because you see how you react in that situation. If you are in a place like this and can have such a relaxing week, it’s gold because you can be with your mind, you can slow down, you can observe yourself, you can re-establish the relation within yourself. Every situation, if that awareness is ringing within you, if all of those ṭālīs are banging within you, everything becomes gold. Every situation, if those bells are ringing within you, is gold for you. That is Pāras maṇi. That is what we are searching to have within ourselves, and that is what Swāmījī can give to us or can start to make happen within us, so that it manifests within us. But it requires us to be open, and it requires us to pick up the phone. How many times is he giving us the message, and we are listening and listening, but we’re not putting it into practice? As Swamiji said last night, he has been teaching that for forty years. Okay, it doesn’t matter if the phone has rung so many times; at least now we should pick it up. Part 2: Closing Words: Moving Forward on the Spiritual Journey with Undisturbed Sādhanā Let us pick it up again and re-establish the practice we had. Always be aware of where we are and what we are doing. Be honest with ourselves, but not aggressive, not mean, not judging ourselves. There is no sense in being angry with yourself about what you have done or haven’t done. Instead, be realistic. Simply take the next moment and try to do whatever you do a little better. Keep moving forward, and spiritually keep making more and more of those bells ring—make more and more of that spiritual vibration arise from within. In small, incremental ways, keep adding to life a kind of spiritual bank account. Sometimes I have this image: our ātmā comes into this body when we are born, and it will go onward when this body leaves us. The ātmā enters the body with a certain karmic balance—whatever it may be, whether very positive, a little less, or something else. We cannot at all change the balance we started with. All we can try to do is make sure that at the end, the balance is greater than when we began this life. That may or may not be enough to attain mokṣa in this lifetime. But to look at it only in terms of one lifetime is a very limited perspective. This journey is longer than that, and we have to move along it. If you want to go from here to Strilky, but you say, “No, I want to do it in two hours, and if I can’t reach there in two hours I just won’t go,” then you will never reach Strilky. It is simply too far. Yet, depending on where we are, we can at least get out to the Croatian border or to the mainland. We have a chance here—we have a chance with Swāmījī. We must make the most of it. Somehow it is as though the road is completely clear of traffic, and we can go as fast as we possibly can on that road at this time. This is not the moment to say, “Before we go, let’s stop for coffee and lunch.” This is the time, spiritually, to really move—to really make that effort, to make that sādhanā. Take everything Swāmījī teaches us and put it into every part of our day. Bring that awareness into everything we do, and take the chance. Before we go, I would like to say some thank-yous. First, to Vivek Purījī and Ānandājī for organizing everything, and to Hem Vatajī and all those who have been organizing here, to the video team and everyone involved in making this seminar possible—thank you very, very much. And thank you to everybody for coming, to Ij for being here, and of course to Swāmījī for making it all possible. Tonight we are in Rijeka, tomorrow in Zagreb, and then Vienna on Friday before I return home—though Swamis don’t have homes; Jadan is that place for me. I look forward to seeing you all there as well. Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān Kī Jai, Satyagrudeva Kī Jai. Everything that starts must have an end, and the same holds true for this seminar. After one week, it has finished and we must say goodbye. Yet I hope it will stay in our memory. This seminar would not have been so pleasant and beautiful if it were only about the setting. The main part was played by Swāmī Jasarāj Purī. As you could see, and as he said at the beginning, when he was coming to Europe he wondered whether he would speak about certain ślokas. Yet what is so important is that he spoke from his own experience—from his childhood and everything he has lived in Jadan. It is one thing to read and know about something; it is another to see in every detail of your life the very thing you have learned and read about. He also gave us the story about the advertisement. I suspect that image will stay in your minds forever, because yoga is taught through stories, and those stories remain with us. Perhaps we will experience the same thing—sitting in a chair and hearing the telephone ring. In that moment we will remember Swāmī Jasarāj Purī and that advertisement, and we will pick up the phone. In this way we will survive one more day. As you could hear, the beauty of it is not to judge yourself, not to place too much burden on yourself—only to survive another day. For all the beautiful satsaṅgs of these days, I can only once more say, “Thank you, Swāmījī, for sending Swāmī Jasarāj Purī to Europe.” And here was our Gajānanjī, who wove everything together so beautifully by singing bhajans and interpreting them. One more thing: whatever you have received here, keep it and give it, so that all may see the change in us—a change for the better—and so that in this way we can survive another school year. Thank you. Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān Kī Jai. Now, traditionally, we will share the shawl and the dakṣiṇā with Svāmī Jasarāj and Svāmī Gajananjī. And the bhajan we were singing we will now sing in Croatian. One more thank-you. It has been quite an experience for me to spend so much time with Gajānanjī, and I think it has been the same for him. It was an absolute pleasure and joy to share satsaṅg together. In Strilky it was really like a game of tennis; I never knew what was coming next. Someone would say something, the ball would go across the net, then Gajananjī would say something and it would come back. It was simply a joy to discover what would happen next. So, Gajānandjī, thank you very much—it was truly a pleasure. I would like, if you don’t mind, before we go—no, no, I get the last word, sorry. Gajananjī says, “If you want to say anything, I will say it too.” And Jasarjī says, “No, my last word—I want to win the match, so I’m going to hit the ball last.” If you don’t mind, I want to tell one story that I have told many times but I know I haven’t told it here. Perhaps people are bored of it, but I am never bored thinking about it. It is about Guru Līlā and happened a week before coming to Europe. I knew from Swāmījī that it was like a practice. It involved a webcast. Swāmījī had been ill after Matajī left her body, and in his exhaustion he had developed a fever. He was resting, and he said, “Okay, tonight you give the webcast for me. I will stay in my room and rest.” For me, that was a very difficult situation, because you know Swāmījī will be sitting upstairs watching the webcast while you are downstairs giving it. But anyway, Guru Vākya. I feel quite nervous speaking in front of Swāmījī, even knowing he is watching on the screen—what should one say? The webcast began. The video team was there—Divya Purī from Hungary, Abhayanand Jī from Slovenia, Vivek Purī, and Avatār Purī, who wasn’t officially on the team but simply likes looking at the computer screen to see what is going on. Anyway, they had their cameras and everything ready. The webcast was underway. Maṅgal Māṇājī always sits in that corner of the Bhakti Sāgar. As I was speaking, her phone rang. Maṅgal Māṇājī never answers her phone in satsaṅg unless it is that particular phone call—Swāmījī. So when she answered, we all knew who it was. She was on the phone, a discussion was going on, and I kept speaking. Then she stood up and went over to the boys handling the video. There was some discussion, and suddenly—just imagine all the equipment they have for a webcast—the boys carefully picked it up, crawled across the floor, and set it up elsewhere without disturbing anything, all while the camera was still running. You are sitting there, trying to talk, while all this is happening. Maṅgal Māṇājī explained to them something Swāmījī had said, and they slowly, carefully moved the laptop and the camera, trying to get to a new spot without interrupting the webcast. At the end, they set everything up again and the webcast continued. Then Maṅgal Māṇājī sat back down. After five minutes her phone rang again. She answered—it must be Swāmījī—and came back to the video team; they moved back in the same system, crawling across the floor. Then Maṅgal Māṇājī sat down. The webcast went on, and of course her phone rang once more; she stood up, came to the boys, and they moved back again. By now everyone watching was starting to find this quite amusing. The topic—I don’t remember exactly—was something like remaining peaceful and not being disturbed by what goes on around you. Maṅgal Māṇājī sat down again. Five minutes passed. The phone rang; she was again speaking to Swāmījī. She came over to the video team. And then it really became one of Swāmījī’s masterpieces. Avatār Purī came through the door. He had been upstairs in Swāmījī’s room and had clearly come with a message that the camera should move from here to there. But in the time it took him to walk downstairs, the camera had already been moved from there to there. Maṅgal Māṇājī was still on the phone with Swāmījī, who was telling her it should go from there to there. Then Maṅgal Māṇājī and Avatār Purī began to argue. Avatār Purī kept saying, “But Swāmījī said it should go this way,” while Maṅgal Māṇājī insisted, “Swāmījī is on the phone right now and he is saying it should go that way.” Avatār Purī was adamant: “Swāmījī said!” And Maṅgal Māṇājī: “Swāmījī is saying…” All the while, the webcast was ongoing. After some further discussion—I don’t even remember if Avatār Purī got on the phone to confirm with Swāmījī—the camera moved again, here this time. Once more Maṅgal Māṇājī sat down, everything settled, the camera was here, and the webcast went on—remaining peaceful. Then the phone rang yet again. Maṅgal Māṇājī took out a sheet of paper and started writing something in large letters. She wrote something big, then made a tour around the back of the Bhakti Sāgar, behind everyone, and came and stood right here in front. She was holding the paper in front of me, and it was obvious I needed to read it. At that moment, Divya Purī and Abhayanand burst out laughing, rolling with laughter. Laughing because Maṅgal Māṇājī was trying to stay off camera, but there was a glass door behind me, and they could see everything reflected in the glass—and the camera was picking it up. The image was so clear you could almost read what was written on the paper in the reflection. The webcast was still going. On the paper was written: “Swāmījī says, ‘Do not be disturbed.’” Swāmījī says, “Don’t be disturbed, but a storm may be coming, and everyone is going to go close their windows.” At that point, everyone in the Bhakti Sāgar, except Divya Purī, left. Some went to close the windows in the Bhakti Sāgar, the rest went to their rooms to close windows. Then those in the Bhakti Sāgar also went out. The webcast continued—just me and Divya Purī. The next morning, Swāmījī came down and was giving darśan to many people who had come because of Matajī’s passing. In a free moment, when no one was there, he leaned over to me and said, “You know, when you are giving satsaṅg, you should never be disturbed.” Yes, Bābājī. Guru Līlā. That is Guru Līlā. He never stops playing, he never stops being interesting; he doesn’t rest. Even when he is up in his room with a fever, he is still… And this is such a great lesson: simply keep doing what you are doing and do not be disturbed by what is going on around you. If you are giving a satsaṅg, then give satsaṅg. It does not matter whether there is only Divya Purī present or a full hall. It really does not matter where the camera is. If you are meditating, then just meditate; it does not matter about the noises outside. I recall in Strilky during one prayer, a child came—it was the first time one of the children had joined—and he took the bell and rang it. It was beautiful, but I sensed a few people thinking, “Oh, this is not normal.” You know, if you are disturbed when Lakṣmaṇa’s dog walks through the room in the middle of prayer, remember: if you are the organizer and it is your responsibility to keep order, then that is your job. But if you are simply there doing prayer at that moment, then do prayer. If you are doing āsanas, do āsanas. If you are doing sevā, do sevā. If you are taking care of your mother when she is sick, or whatever it is, at that moment—do it. Be in it, be in that moment. This is the kind of focus we need to cultivate toward ourselves. Especially when you are meditating, noises will always be present. Who cares? If you are inside, with yourself, then noises are not disturbing; it is our relation to them that makes them disturbing. “A mehe kāma satsaṅg se, jagat bhake to bhakenede”—no matter how much noise the world makes, if we are in satsaṅg and that is our focus, then we are truly in satsaṅg. So that was my story of Gurujī’s līlā, my training before coming to Europe. At the time it was a little difficult to keep talking and, in the end, not to laugh—especially when they were all laughing by the camera. Afterwards there was a replay upstairs. I live downstairs in Gurujī’s building, and Divya Purī and the boys live above. I could hear them upstairs; there were people who had not attended the satsaṅg because they were working in the āśram. I heard them saying, “Oh, you have got to see this bit!” as they replayed the video, particularly the part where Maṅgal Māṇājī came and stood there with the paper. They repeated it again and again. Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān kī jaya. This is good. So have a safe journey home and enjoy. Even when it is hard, you may as well enjoy. Enjoy it being hard. Śrī Dīp Nārāyaṇa Bhagavān Kī Jai.